Integrity plays an important role in the CIA triad security policy of development. Integrity means making sure that information is not modified before it reaches the destination. When it comes to data integrity, data can only be modified by the authorized user. As a service that benefits and saves lives of millions of people, data integrity is of utmost importance to guarantee secure service.
Hackers exploiting network vulnerabilities can inject worms and Trojans into the network. This can modify and corrupt the records, which in turn can affect the integrity of data. Modification of health information can negatively affect a patient’s outcomes. For example, a slight modification of the patient’s tablet intake time may severely affect the patient. Environmental hazards, power outages, and electromechanical faults can also cause data loss or discrepancies if records are not properly backed up and replicated.
The biggest concerning data integrity attacks for security specialists are modifying and corrupting the data. These attacks have a high impact on the banking, military and health sectors. For example, banking systems will hold our personal and transactional information in their databases. When a transaction occurs, data is transmitted between two systems. Let’s say client schedules a transfer of $1000 to a recipient. A data integrity attack can happen if an attacker watching this transaction may tamper this information and modify the amount. In such situations, the client and the bank would end up with financial and also legal consequences. This attack is also known as a man-in-the-middle attack.
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I, as one among the million credit card users, could have been the victim of the Equifax data breach, a critical security breach that was revealed on September 2017. Though I was not notified by Equifax that my data was compromised, I was still worried if any of my other data ended up in the wrong hands. Equifax is one of the three major credit reporting agencies and anyone who has a credit report has a good chance of being one among the 146 million affected consumers. Sensitive data such as credit card information, social security numbers, full names, birth dates, driver’s licenses, phone numbers and email addresses, which is exactly the kind of data that any criminal can use for identity theft and infiltrate any service vulnerable to fraud such as address, email, contact, medical histories, employee accounts, and bank accounts information.
In the last six months of the year 2017 Equifax’s data breach pretax cost is $164 million. In 2018 this cost became $439 million after the security upgrades, technology upgrades, legal fees, and free identity theft services for the customers who were impacted by the breach.
“It looks like this will be the most expensive data breach in history,” Larry Ponemon, chairman of Ponemon Institute, a research group that tracks costs of cyber-attacks, told Reuters. He also mentions that well over $600 million, including costs to resolve government investigations into the incident and civil lawsuits against the firm.
Another similar data integrity breach happened in 2015. This time it is Anthem is one of the biggest insurance providers. Anthem was caught for not taking steps to secure personal in their systems. This resulted in the exposure of valuable data such as a patient’s medical information. The attackers accessed the systems and gained the 79 million records of patients and employees. This data included name, medical ID, address and social security numbers. Anthem ended up paying $115 million as a settlement for the data integrity breach. In addition, they paid the affected customers a sum of $15 million.
As a software engineer, it should be our basic duty to keep data integrity in mind when designing and developing systems. One of the ways to start it is by incorporating basic security measures such as hashing, encryption etc.
References:
- https://www.reuters.com/article/us-equifax-cyber/equifax-breach-could-be-most-costly-in-corporate-history-idUSKCN1GE257
- https://www.datanami.com/2016/01/25/protecting-data-integrity-against-the-new-cyber-threat/
- https://www.csoonline.com/article/2130877/data-breach/the-biggest-data-breaches-of-the-21st-century.html
